celestial-meridian
The imaginary great circle formed by the spinal zenith and nadir, allowing humans to locate themselves via angles between their spinal axis and celestial poles.
1 chapter across 1 book
Spinal Catastrophism (2019)Thomas Moynihan
This chapter explores Immanuel Kant's analogy between the spherical nature of the Earth and the bounded structure of human reason, emphasizing how human bipedalism and vertical spinal morphology uniquely enable spatial orientation and geodesic cognition. It argues that the human spine's alignment with Earth's radius allows individuals to triangulate their position on the planet by extending an axis from head to pelvis, underpinning both our capacity for planetary-scale knowledge and our vulnerability to back pain. The chapter situates this spinal-centric orientation as foundational to human rationality, navigation, and the development of global spatial abstractions.